


A Bad Day Made Better

by hello_lovely



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Boris, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Top Theo, insecure boris, sex and pasta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hello_lovely/pseuds/hello_lovely
Summary: Boris had a bad day. Theo is there to help make it a little bit better.
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 3
Kudos: 88





	A Bad Day Made Better

**Author's Note:**

> I am 10000000% projecting my insecurities on to Boris. Might rewrite this later, I don't know.

It had been a bad day. Not one of those days where anything especially bad happens, but one where many little things compound onto each other until all you can think of is the moment when you get home.

It had started fine, but everything started going wrong when I left my house to meet Katya at the bar. I’d decided to walk because it was not too far and I didn’t want to bother Gyuri. But I was halfway there when I realized that not only had I forgotten my lighter at home, but I had also forgotten my wallet. While with Katya, she told me that a man we had had trouble with in the past was out of prison and back in our hair. Which was lovely considering how much money he had cost me the last time he was out and the number of people under me who wanted him dead. It was a situation that I could see would end in violence, and short of killing him myself, there was not much I could do. As I walked back from the bar, I realized that I had forgotten to check the weather. It was raining, torrential downpour, and I had not thought to bring an umbrella. Thus, I was forced to duck into a café to get out of the rain and phone Gyuri. I found out then that not only had my phone died, but I had chosen the wrong café to take refuge in. The barista was not so kind and demanded that I either buy something to drink or get out and due to not having my wallet and realizing that I was already soaked, I left without much fuss and braved the storm for the rest of the walk home.

So, a bad day. One where right away all you can think of is the moment when you’ll get home and unlock your door and be able to stop acting like a capable adult person. When you can change out of that day's clothes, pour a glass of wine or vodka or something, and relax on your couch with a joint and a book. And I was excited about that, very much so, but what I was the most excited for was that Potter had planned to get home from an auction in Boston while I was working and would be at the apartment when I arrived. When I arrived home, contrary to how my day had gone, I was smiling. Especially when I unlocked the door and saw Potter’s coat hanging on the hook. I hung my coat and slid off my shoes before entering the kitchen.

“Potter!” I said, striding into the room and leaning against the counter, next to where he was making some sort of pasta.

Now, this is where I think the day I had colored the way I was seeing things. Because when I looked at his face, I did not see joy at seeing me. I saw frustration or maybe exhaustion but not at life, at me. Which was a common reaction people had to my presence. I had always been a lot of personality and I was not blind to the effect that can have on people.

So when I saw that look on his face, my mood plummeted down again, lower then what it had been when I arrived home.

“Hello, Boris. Why are you wet?”

“Forgot umbrella. Am going to go shower now, I will be back soon,” I said, pushing away from the counter and hurriedly away.

I did go shower, of course. And I followed through on my plan of getting into comfortable clothes and smoking a joint. But instead of returning to the kitchen, like I had told Potter I would, I grabbed a book and curled up in the bed.

I wonder how long it took for Potter to realize I wasn’t coming back. Time got away from me, a mixture of the weed and the comfort of the soft sheets and mattress and I had started to doze off slightly. So I did not know how long it was before he came into the bedroom.

I glanced up from my book at a knock on the door frame. I furrowed my brow, confused: we didn’t knock, even on closed doors. Both of us usually came and went as we pleased.

“Can I come in?”

“You do not have to ask,” I said, closing my book and setting it on the bedside table, “It is your room as much as mine.”

Potter approached the bed and sat next to me, picking up the book and looking at the back. I knew well he could not read it, he’d never quite grasped the Cyrillic alphabet, but he enjoyed looking at it to pick up any words he did know. He set the book back down and turned to where I leaned against the headboard, “Hello. I missed you.”

“Hello, Potter.”

“How was your week?”

“Good.”

“Really? Because you seem off.”

“It was fine, Potter,” I said, all forced smile and knocking shoulders, “Just had a rough day is all.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing, really. Little things, you know, _woke up on the wrong side of the bed_ as they say.”

“Okay,” he said. He leaned next to me against the headboard for a moment, reaching for my second joint of the evening and bringing it to his lips. Potter then wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to his side. I relaxed into him, leaning my head against his shoulder and shutting my eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Potter.”

“Liar.”

I sighed, “Nothing, really, just did not want to bother you.”

“You could never bother me, Boris.”

“Now you are the liar.”

“Hey, come here,” he said, twisting me around and pulling me into his lap where I was forced to look him in the eye. He smiled up at me, “Hello. I missed you.”

I smiled back, gently rubbing my nose against his, “I missed you, too, Theo.”

“That’s much better,” he smiled wider, leaning forward to press his lips to mine, gentle as nothing. One of his hands was on my hip and the other on my jaw, guiding my movements to match his. When he pulled away I tried to follow, but the hand on my jaw stopped me, “You don’t have to pretend with me, Boris. In this apartment, we don’t pretend.”

I lifted my hands, pressing one to his chest where his heart sat and the other to the base of his ribcage, and sighed again. Resting my forehead against his, “Your face.”

“You like my face.”

“Very much so, yes,” I laughed, “I mean when I got home. You looked tired, did not want to make you more so.”

The hand on my neck kneaded the muscle there, soft but firm. Potter leaned back against the headboard, pulling me with him to recline against his chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around me as I pressed my ear to his chest where I could hear his breathing and the sound of his heart. I’d always done this when we were children, especially on the rare nights where he beat me to sleep and I needed something to ground myself or when my father had been especially awful. His breath moved his chest just as it always had, the cadence of his heartbeat the same. If I closed my eyes I could almost pretend we were back in Vegas, when things had been difficult but so much more simple. The hand running through my hair even felt the same, though my hair was shorter and cleaner and his hand was larger and rougher.

“I know who I am, Theo. I know that I can be annoying to most. Too loud, too jittery, too _much_. I can be exhausting to be around, I know, and I except this. Just do not want to push you to a point where you will realize you do not have to put up with me.”

“I love you, Boris,” he said, pulling me tighter to his chest and pressing a kiss to the top of my head, “But that’s bullshit. You’re not annoying, you’re not exhausting to be around. I enjoy being around you, more than anything. To me, it’s exhausting not being around you.”

I pulled away to look at him again, “You will tell me when that changes?”

“It won’t change, Boris.”

“But if?”

“Sure, I will tell you,” his hand found my neck and pulled me back towards him. His lips found mine, warm and soft and _grounding_ , making the day all okay again. Gradually the kiss got harsher and rougher, his hands pulling at my hair, my own scratching at his ribs.

And then he pushed me back and rolled over top of me, “Until then, I—“ his mouth found my jaw, “—have been gone—“ and then my neck, “—for nearly a week—“ and my collar bone, “and you are gorgeous.”

I moaned, gripping tightly to his shoulders before reaching blindly for the buttons on his shirt as he sucked bruises into my shoulder. He nuzzled my collar bone and then bit down, causing me to groan and roll my head back into the pillows. I sunk my hands into his hair and pulled his face back up to mine while his hand pulled the hem of my pants aside. It pressed itself against my front—the only thing separating us my underwear—and I gasped again, bucking up into his hand. He chuckled against my neck before pulling away and reaching towards our side table.

I quickly freed myself of my clothing—easy enough as after my shower I’d only pulled on a shirt, boxers, and sleep pants—before collapsing back against the pillows.

When he turned back to me he was smirking, “Someone’s eager.”

“I missed you,” I grinned, watching happily as he covered my body with his own.

“Yeah?”

I nodded, allowing him to push my legs apart. He coated his fingers in lube—some fancy rose type that Kitsey had bought us as a joke and we had grown bizarrely fond of—and swallowed my gasp when he pressed a finger into me.

Theo pulled away as he moved his finger shallowly, in and out slowly, “Is this okay?”

I nodded frantically, “Tak, Theo, just kiss me you twat,”he laughed but conceded and allowed me to pull him down against me. His body—so much bigger than mine now, when we were children he was much shorter than me—covered mine entirely. I never felt safer then I did with him, like this, with him wrapped around me. Even when we were young I’d liked this, liked curling into him and allowing _him_ to hold _me_. And in bed with him, I felt both completely undone and completely safe at the same time.

“Okay,” I sighed, “Okay, Theo, come on.”

“Another?”

“Please,” I moaned.

He nodded, adding another finger and then another, until I grabbed his wrist, “Now, Theo, please?”

“Please what?”

“I can’t, please,” I moaned.

“All you have to do is ask, Borya,” he whispered against my neck. _Borya_ , said in his voice, husky and dark with want nearly undid me then and there.

“Fuck me, Theo. I want you inside of me, please, I want to feel you, I want you everywhere.”

With that, he pulled his hand away, wiping it against the sheets. I grabbed the lube from where it had come to sit beside us and poured some on my hands while he pulled off his trousers. I rubbed the lube against his cock before guiding it to me, letting my legs fall further to the sides.

His arms framed my face as he slowly sank into me and I bit at my lip, trying to hold back the sounds I knew would only get louder. But Theo cupped my jaw with the hand not holding him up, “You don’t annoy me, Borya. You’re not too loud, too jittery. You’re never too _much_. You’ll never push me away because I love you. Everything about you, always.”

“ _I ya tebya,_ Theo,” I moaned, finally allowing myself to let go the rest of the way and relax back against the bed. He gently ground against, rolling his body slow but firm against mine. His head fell against my shoulder as my arms and legs wrapped around him.

We moved like that until I couldn’t take it anymore, “Theo, Theo, _pozhaluysta_ , I am so close.”

“Me too, Borya,” he sat back so I was sat in his lap, on his dick. His hands found my hips and the angle changed everything so that I was keening, gripping his shoulders desperately as he moaned and bit at my neck. All of my muscles tightened before I came undone, spilling against his abdomen. I carefully kept my pace, after a moment to catch my breath, until I felt him spilling inside of me.

I stayed on him, curled in his lap with his arms tight around me, as we breathed each other in. We stayed like that for a long while, him rocking us back and forth until I came to a realization:

“I just showered.”

Theo barked out a laugh as I carefully moved off of his lap, wincing. He kissed my temple before laying down and pulling me against his chest, hooking his chin over my shoulder, “I say we lay here for a while, shower again, and then reheat the pasta I made us. It’s definitely gone cold by now. Pippa gave us some of that red wine you like, as well”

“Can we watch Netflix with our pasta?”

“Of course, Borya.”

“I love you, Theo.”

“ _I ya tebya_ , Borya.”


End file.
